Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Life
Microbes may sky jump to new hosts
The role of microbes in cloud formation and precipitation may not be an accident of chemistry so much as an evolutionary adaptation by certain bacteria and other nonsentient beings, a scientist posited at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
- Life
Tarantulas shoot silk from their feet
The unique ability may give the heavy spiders a better grip and prevent deadly falls.
- Life
Suspect bacterium may trigger Parkinson’s
A study in mice shows that H. pylori, the microbe that causes stomach ulcers, may also affect the brain.
- Life
Your gut microbes are what you eat
A mammal's diet strongly influences what kinds of microorganisms live in its intestines.
- Life
Numbers flap has minor implications for global extinctions
A statistical technique used to estimate rates of species disappearance is flawed, two ecologists charge — but not enough to invalidate recent dire assessments.
-
- Humans
Geographic profiling fights disease
Widely used to snare serial criminals, a forensic method finds application in epidemiology.
- Life
Daytime bites for zombie ants
The living dead of the insect world show an unexplained sense of timing: a surge of strange activity in the a.m. followed by a final death grip at midday.
- Chemistry
Melting icebergs fertilize ocean
Releasing extra iron into the water boosts carbon dioxide uptake by plankton.
- Life
Genes & Cells
Why mosquitoes don’t get malaria, plus brain stem cells and hot cancer treatment in this week’s news.
- Life
Body attacks lab-made stem cells
In mice, the immune system targets and destroys reprogrammed adult skin cells, raising questions about their medical potential.
- Life
New fungi the dark matter of mushrooms
Scientists see the first images of an ancient lineage of microbes that can’t be grown in the lab.
